


Office Hours

by silveradept



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Graduate School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29079699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Hermione visits Susan during office hours, seeking clarity of why Susan is so certain various other forms of magic exist outside of what she was taught at Hogwarts.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Susan Pevensie
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: X-Ship - The Crossover Flash Exchange





	Office Hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ANGSWIN](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANGSWIN/gifts).



"Doctor Pevensie?"

Susan looked up from her computer to see Hermione Granger's face poking in the doorway.

"Hello, Hermione! What brings you to my office today?"

Susan enjoyed seeing any of her students come to her advisory hours. That it was Hermione Granger, who was always striving for both top marks and deep understanding of the magic being taught, was a bonus. Unlike many of the Hogwarts students that had chosen to engage in graduate studies in her program on informal magic, Hermione Granger seemed to take the concept seriously and respectfully with regard to the many examples of magical practice that did not have a formalized ritual or discernable rules of usage. Hermione had also been the first to notice the leonine theme to the coursework, even though she had assumed that was Susan's nod to Gryffindor house from her own Hogwarts education. It had been a pleasant discovery for both of them that the other had been born to non-Wizarding families and intentionally spent significant amounts of time outside the magical bubble and maintained contacts outside of wizards and witches.

"I wanted to talk to you about spontaneous magic," Hermione said. "Your lecture said there was far fewer instances of it than we think, but surely it's not all convincing illusionists or latent magic expressions?"

"Most of it is," Susan replied. "Would you like some tea? I'm just about to make some."

"I couldn't impose," Hermione said immediately. 

Susan waved her off and prepared two cups. After a slow sip, Susan continued, "Most alleged incidents of spontaneous magic turn out to be, after investigation, an act of prestidigitation or the arrival of the latent magical talent of someone with magicians in their ancestry somewhere. True unexplained magic is vanishingly rare."

"So what do you think is the cause for those few cases that haven't been explained already?" Hermione asked. Susan had a feeling that Hermione had an idea of her own, but wanted to see what Susan thought. That Hermione had accepted the tea, instead of insisting, suggested she thought they were going to have a long discussion.

"You seem to have a thought in mind already, Hermione," Susan said.

Hermione looked unhappy to have been caught out, but took a drink of her tea before starting to speak. "I was wondering why you are so negative about the prospect of spontaneous magic but are fairly adamant about the existence of powerful magical entities that could grant someone the ability to do magic on their own."

Susan smiled, hearing her lecture words quoted back at each other. "So you want to know why I don't believe in spontaneous magic but I do believe in gods and spirits?" Hermione nodded. "Mostly it's because I've already met the gods and spirits, so I don't have to believe in them," Susan said. "And so have you, according to the stories that you've told me."

"The castle ghosts aren't really what I was thinking of," Hermione said. "They can be helpful, or annoying, but they weren't going to give anyone magical abilities they didn't already have."

"I was thinking of the centaurs, the goblins, and the house elves, actually," Susan said. "They seem to have different magical skills available to them than the ones you were taught at Hogwarts. I don't mean to bring up any bad memories," Susan said, as Hermione's face hardened, "but I think they're the easiest example of why I think animism is a fairly safe position to hold as an academic studying magic."

"I…will go think upon that more," Hermione said, finishing her tea cup fairly quickly. "Thank you for the tea, Doctor Pevensie," she said, new thoughts very clearly working their way through her mind as she left.

Susan took another drink from her own teacup. Hermione would be back as soon as she had worked through the new ideas and information. She was a little worried that she might have actually offended Hermione, but they had discussed more serious, more personal things for Hermione than this, so Susan suspected Hermione was unhappy with having been caught unprepared and without sufficient understanding to argue effectively, rather than having crossed a line that she hadn't known was there. She would send Hermione an e-mail tomorrow to check in if she hadn't heard from her by then, but often times, Hermione sent her one well before when Susan would be worried about checking in instead with a new angle once she had found her feet again.

Before she left the office for the evening, Hermione had sent her the e-mail she had been expecting. Unusually for Hermione, it only consisted of two words.

_Who's Aslan?_


End file.
